


acedia

by symposiums



Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: Gen, Otherwise known as: David Tackles the Throes of Ennui
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-05-18
Updated: 2012-05-18
Packaged: 2017-11-05 14:11:11
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,676
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/407313
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/symposiums/pseuds/symposiums
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“It’s like—” you look at her frame curled up beside you, golden hair spilling over her shoulders.  “Like that one quote—‘I am lost, abandoned in the present’—by that one favorite philosopher of yours.”</p>
            </blockquote>





	acedia

“I think,” you hesitate―already regretting the thought upon the arrival of your tongue,  “I’m having an existential crisis.”

It is late at night; a quiet blanket of darkness lays comfortably over the both of you only interrupted briefly by the chime of the town’s clock tower and the sharp bark of a dog down the street.

“What?” Kathryn mutters groggily, shifting only slightly beside you.  Your gaze remains on the ceiling, as it has been for the past two hours noted by the chimes and the red line of numbers glaring past her shoulder like that of a creature that only exists in storybooks.

“It’s like—” you look at her frame curled up beside you, golden hair spilling over her shoulders.  “Like that one quote—‘I am lost, abandoned in the present’—by that one favorite philosopher of yours.”

“Sartre.” She presses her hand against her face, “Have you been up all night thinking about this?”

“Who am I, Kathryn?  Up until just a few weeks ago, I didn’t even know my name, let alone my past.  It all just feels so… false, like something fabricated.”  You sigh, turning your gaze back to the ceiling.  “I feel like there’s something much bigger missing from my life.”

Kathryn lifts her head to face you; her eyebrows knit together and all you can do is inwardly cringe at how _kind_ she is—she loves you, thinks the world of you—a syllogism written in her eyes and the way she reaches over to trace the lines of your jaw.

“David,” she whispers, voiced cracked, scared, and alone; she knows what it is like to wander without a meaning. “Your past is not a fabrication—you exist now and you existed then.  _We_ existed.”

“I know,” you say, but the tone of your voice does not read convinced.  You hope to find something in the way your fingers wrap around the expanse of her wrist, but all that you find is the smooth plane of her skin and the rhythm of her heartbeat.

 

***

 

(He dreams of a princess with hair as beautiful as the sun and an unfortunate curse placed upon her life: to have everything in the world, but no need for it.

“But why?” he asks.  Her face is written with a sadness that only a tragic tale can portray, one where nobody wins, yet, in her caesious eyes, she holds a strange regard of quiet beauty.  “You have everything—a kingdom, gold, riches.”

“The world means nothing when the one thing you love most is not there to share it with you.”

“Can you not fight for your love?”

“I have,” she smiles, bitter and empty, “but the battle was one I lost.”

“Love—true love—can never be lost.”

“Then, I suppose that makes me weak.  What is a fortunate life without reason?  My only fault was my ever-growing boredom knowing there was nothing more to fight for, for I lost the only thing that mattered and wandered for the rest of my days, looking for an answer I did not find.”

“How sad,” the prince says.

“Yes," she agrees. “Very.”)

 

***

 

You distract yourself with work, hoping to find answers in the revelation amongst your clouded thoughts you attempt not to think too hard about.  You find yourself charmed by the personalities of animals at the local shelter—roughhousing with dog, singing along with the arias of bluebirds and golden canaries—only to keep yourself occupied during the times spent roaming in stores and alleyways, searching for something that does not exist.

You are enticed by the throes of a white feline with two different colored eyes that takes an interest in the warmth of your flannel shirt, amused by the single dangling string of yarn.  You scratch the soft patch of fur behind it’s ear when it finds itself worn out by the extraneous activity.

“Have you ever wished to be anything more?” you ask as if expecting an answer—(some small part of you hopes you will receive it)—but only the purr of the creature rumbles against the palm of your hand. “Of course not, you’re a cat.”

 

***

 

It is pouring when you reach the post office—Kathryn had sent you to buy stamps after leaving work—when you run into the Mayor dropping a letter off, umbrella in hand.

“Mayor Mills,” you regard her, raindrops slipping off the hood of your raincoat, obscuring the vision between you.  She looks at you with a smile, her laugh breaking the bond of formality between you.

“Please, David, it’s Regina.”

“Regina,” you say with a familiar twinge in your mind.  You ignore it in favor of conversation—she does not need to know the life (three week) crisis you are currently struggling with.  “This may be bad timing, raining and at the post office and all, but I wanted to thank you for all you’ve done for me so far.”

She looks confused, hurt almost, but the expression soon fades to a warm smile.  Her gloved fingers grip around the hilt of her umbrella.  “It is nothing, really.  It was the most I could do.”

Overhead, a single cry of a crow breaks through the pounding rain, swooping underneath the groove of an old building.  You look up to watch it; Regina seems to take no notice of it, her gaze transfixed on you.

“Have you—“ Rain begins to pelt against your forehead; you find yourself disregarding your thoughts once again. “—Ever felt like that you are meant for something bigger?”

The crow caws again; the mayor furrows her eyebrows, corners of her lips twitching only in the slightest.

“No.”

 

*** 

 

When you get home, your skin feels soaked to the bone, and all you can hear is Kathryn’s voice in your head, repeating like a record:

“L'Etre et le Néant— _Being and Nothingness_.”

(You are a being; you are nothing.  A man without a past—a past only remembered by those around you.)

 

***

 

“David,” you hear Regina calling from behind you on your way home.  This time the two of you meet, the sun arches over the town; whatever trace of the passing storm left is now gone.

“Regina,” you turn to face her—looking put-together and dignified, as usual, compared to the run-down homeless trucker look you seem to somehow pull off like it is a creative art—as she reaches into her purse and hands you a novel.

“What you said yesterday, about thinking you are meant for something more.  I think you should give this a read.”

“ _Tender is the Night?_ ”

“I think you will identify with the main character a great amount.”

You examine the book in your hand, turning it over to glance at the summary.  Her judgment, as you see it, is a logical one, and you presume that she is right.  After all, she is the one who found you.  Isn’t she?

“I’ll give it a read,” you say looking up at her with a smile that only she can so craftily return with such a resounding performance.

 

***

 

When you arrive home, Kathryn is asleep on the couch, her book pressed against her side.  She looks so worn out, exhausted, that you are afraid she could crumble into dust at any second, and you find it to be unsurprising that you still continue to feel nothing.

Walking over to her, you coil a finger around one of her single locks.  It shimmers gold in the sunlight, like hay into twine.

“You’re bored of me, aren’t you?”

Her eyes soft peer open, her hands still pressed against her cheeks.  Your hand slips away and falls to your side, the ghost of her soft hair against your coarse skin lingers.

“Kathryn,” you sigh.  “I’m not bored with you, I’m just…”

“Bored.”

“—Con _fu_ sed.” 

“Then, perhaps I am not the one who can help you.”

You feel as angry and helpless as she does; your hand reaches out to rest on her shoulder for a moment, fingertips sweep past the nap of her neck to push back her hair.  It feels fake, but you force yourself, for the sake of both of you.

“Keep me grounded,” you tell her, “that’s all I ask.”

She buries her face in her hands and begins to sob; your stomach drops and suddenly, you feel like the grotesque monster of this tale.

 

***

 

The novel Regina gave you, as it turns out, confuses you at first—filled with the dreamy fantasies of a young actress in her upcoming debut, enticed with a group of American living in the French Riviera; mature, rich, and materialistically beautiful—but you persevere.

Kathryn now sleeps on the couch at night; you frequently offer her the bed, but she says that she has already spent enough lonely nights there that the couch would be a nice change of pace. You’re not quite sure what to do in-between both your attempts to push each other away, so you work longer hours and read during the quieter times. Your mind tries to pick apart what memories are real ones—you and Kathryn at the mouth of the river, the hazed memory of a six-year-old child smiling up at you, a mess of dark curls framing a young woman’s face—so you delve further and further into the novel.

Dick Diver—you finally realize—is whom Regina is talking about: tired with the monotonous mundane, the wish to find something more, despite his fortuity, and the finds it the young actress herself. You are cadenced by the sheer fact the man ends up in a foreign country, stripped of nothing; beaten and broken until brought down from the valiant titles of a God to a common man.

By the time you finish, it is 4:13 in the morning and you began to wonder how this all began.

 

*** 

 

Your revelation is that there is no revelation.

You are not a crow, a cat, or a prince; you are a common man who woke up one day constrained to someone else's memories.  

 

**Author's Note:**

> God, am I like the rest after all?  
> —F. Scott Fitzgerald, Tender is the Night


End file.
